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INTERVIEW WITH GUEST AUTHOR BRUCE PERRIN
Q: Tell us a little about yourself.
A: I’m a psychologist turned author, although perhaps not the kind of psychologist you’re thinking. I’ve worked almost exclusively in a subfield of psychology known as human factors, which addresses, among other issues, questions of how to use technology to improve human learning and memory. To me, this is one of the most exciting areas of research for the future, as we look for that “sweet spot” between man and machine.
I might still be working in the field except for two things. One, I always wanted to be an author; and two, after a while, my company transitions researchers to new business development … with all the travel that entails. Don’t get me wrong; I like to travel. But we had a joke about business travel for the company: “You won’t see a lot of the world, but what you see, you’ll see a lot.” Over the last ten years or so of my first career, I spent the equivalent of several months each in the United Kingdom, Italy, and Singapore. Those are great places to visit, except when all you see, day after day, is the inside of some business’s conference room.
So, when the opportunity to write came along—and to achieve a more balanced travel portfolio—I jumped at the chance. Six books later, I’m still loving it.
Q: How long have you been publishing fiction?
A: During the Manhattan Project, scientists weren’t certain that the atomic bomb wouldn’t cause a chain reaction that would destroy the earth. Author Pearl S. Buck in a 1959 article put it this way:
"If, after calculation, [Compton] said, it was proved that the chances were more than approximately three in one million that the earth would be vaporized by the atomic explosion, he would not proceed with the project. Calculation proved the figures slightly less -- and the project continued."
The research I’ve done, and most psychological research, uses five chances in one hundred (rather than three in one million) as acceptable odds for scientific “proof”. So, of my 40 or so published papers, one might estimate that two are wrong, which means I started publishing fiction in the 1980s or 90s.
Or, if you prefer a less tongue-in-cheek answer, my first fiction novel was published in 2015.
Q: Why did you choose to write in your particular genre?
A: I’ve always been fascinated by the intersection of human psychology and technology, both now and in the future, as my comments about my background probably made clear. And since most technologies will have beneficial uses as well as potentially evil misuses, all it takes is an unbalanced mind to change the course of history. That theme, which is common in most of my books, puts them in the techno-thriller genre.
And while I don’t write it, I enjoy historical fiction. The reason is because many of the writers in this genre are masters at blurring the line between accepted history and pure fiction. I find this tension between fact and fiction engrossing and so, I try to do the same with the technologies in my books. That focus places many of my books in the hard science fiction genre, where I avoid “Voila Science” and fantasy in favor of what’s likely in the near term. My near-future mystery, Killer in the Retroscape, for example, includes a couple of chapters about a pandemic. It, however, was written in 2018, well before COVID. I’ll let you judge how well I blurred the line between fact and fiction in that story.
Then, sometimes, such as my novel, From the Mind of a Witch, the psychology of the principles takes center stage, nudging the book toward the psychological thriller genre. And sometimes the evil is dark enough to make the horror genre applicable. Both of these genres, however, are generally secondary in my writing.
Q: What made you decide to become an indie author, and what do you like best about being indie?
A: The distinction between indie (independent or self-published) and traditionally published tends to be important to authors, but I’ve often wondered—does it mean anything to readers?
Initially, I suspect that traditionally published implied higher quality writing, on average. After all, it involves multiple gates—an agent who’s willing to pitch the book to a publisher and a publisher who’s willing to take a chance to print it. But one only needs to consider the history of Chicken Soup for the Soul, which became a best-seller, and then a series, and now a multi-armed franchise to question that conclusion. It was rejected 144 times by publishers. Obviously, it’s not a foolproof system.
On the other hand, in its 2019 review of Kindle sales, Amazon indicated that more than 1,000 indie authors hit six-figure sales. So, equally obvious, there are some popular (and most likely good) indie authors. Of course, most indies don’t make six figures a year, me included, but being indie doesn’t automatically mean lower quality.
So, to me, the question becomes, do I spend time chasing an agent, who in turn, spends more time chasing a publisher when in the end, I do most of the marketing anyway while being paid less and forcing my plots into a publisher’s formula. I think not … unless they have a powerhouse marketing department.
Q: What’s the easiest part of writing for you? What’s the hardest part?
A: The fact that I’d consider a publisher with “… a powerhouse marketing department” probably tells you what I find least interesting in the writing process—marketing. And I’ll have to admit, I started writing without realizing how competitive the field was. In 2018, there were nearly 1.7 million books self-published in the United States. So, the chance that I could have put Killer in the Retroscape on Amazon that year and sold more than a few copies to family and friends without marketing is virtually zero. If marketing isn’t the proverbial “necessary evil” of writing, it’s at least the least engaging but vital activity to me.
The most interesting? First drafts. If you’ve ever seen the comedy movie, True Memoirs of an International Assassin with Kevin James, you may understand why. James is an author and at the start of the movie, he’s struggling with writer’s block. And while he’s searching for the right words or the perfect twist, his characters are sitting around bored, waiting for his creative juices to flow again. It feels something like that when I work on a first draft, except my characters take a lot more active role. As I write their dialog, they may say “I don’t talk that way.” Or as I move them through the plot, they may remind me, “Remember what happened in the last book? I wouldn’t do that.” OK, maybe they don’t actually talk to me, but I’ve had sections bother me for weeks (as if my characters are whispering in my ear) until I find the storyline that works for all of us. And when that happens, it’s worth all the back-and-forth that got us there.
Q: Are you a plotter or a pantser?
A: I’d say, a little of each. I’ve never started a book without an outline. Admittedly, it’s a lot more detailed in the opening and the final scenes, two sections that I’ve generally written in my head dozens of times before pen ever touches paper (or keypresses rearrange pixels on the screen if you want today’s version of that idea). In fact, not only have I mentally written the final scene of my current work-in-progress that’s about half done but the finale of the next book in the series as well.
What happens between my well-defined opening and closing, however, is much more like the writing style of a pantser—the outline provides a general direction, but the actual path is defined by the characters. My villains always show me an eviler side than I’d imagined possible. My protagonists show resilience I didn’t know they had. But my collaboration with them, nonetheless, has always led back to the ending I’d envisioned.
Q: Do you have a set writing schedule or a goal of a certain number of words within a certain time period?
A: My schedules don’t involve writing. They involve everything else, everything that keeps me from the story—paying bills, marketing my books, maintaining my home. I also schedule my hobbies, mostly hiking, because even living in Colorado, it still takes some planning to spend the day in the mountains. So, why schedule these and not writing? Because the point of scheduling is to get things done as quickly and as efficiently as possible. So, while I enjoy tweaking plot with a cup of coffee at my computer and like mentally rehearsing dialog as I nod off to sleep, who wants to spend even a second more than absolutely necessary paying their bills?
Q: How do you typically get your ideas for a book?
A: Perhaps an example, adapted from my answer to a similar question on Goodreads, will provide some insight. Shortly after publishing my first book, a friend emailed me, asking, “Of Half a Mind. Is that autobiographical? :-)”
That’s not a bad guess, but it’s wrong. The inspiration actually came from a recommendation I received for another book. I was told I’d like it because it’s about “brain plasticity gone wrong”. And since plasticity is the brain’s natural curative response to injury—it’s the brain rewiring itself to avoid damaged neural pathways—I was hooked. How could healing go wrong?
So, I got a copy of the book and read it, only to find that it really wasn’t about plasticity.
But that made little difference because I was still hooked. I began thinking about the technology necessary to coerce the brain into reorganizing itself in the absence of injury. Some of that technology I knew from my first career, but it was still eerie how close we had already come to creating the fictional device I dreamt up for the book. In my opinion, I’d effectively blurred the line between technological fact and the novel’s fiction.
Then, the question became, what would someone who used this capability look like? From that question came the fictional character, The Experimenter, an individual who had succumbed to the warped sense of morals the device produced. And if you’re wondering, yes, horror is one of the subgenres for this book.
Q: Are you working on something right now?
A: My current work-in-progress is the fifth book in the Mind Sleuth Series, tentatively titled, A Winkle in the Mind. Two of my main characters, Sam “Doc” Price and PI Rebecca Marte are reunited to investigate a woman’s bizarre political conspiracy theory that leads to an attack on a U.S. Representative and her suicide. With all the usual causes of homicidal delusions eliminated—reality-altering drugs, brainwashing from abuse and deprivation, brain injury, etc.—they’re forced to adopt a hypothesis so chilling that they can only hope it’s wrong.
Q: What do you think is the future of book publishing?
A: There are dozens of surveys of authors and publishers that seem to say mostly the same things about the future of publishing. eBooks and audiobooks will continue to be growth markets, while print books seem to be holding their own. The last result has always surprised me, as I lost interest long ago in having dozens of print books filling every available nook and cranny of my home. And frankly, I wonder if it will still be true in another five to ten years. We’ll see.
But beyond these near-term trends, I’d expect audiobook narrators to be displayed first and then, authors themselves. Today’s work on auto-narration of audiobooks is being enabled by the same artificial intelligence technology that taught Siri and Alexa to speak. And even today, I sometimes give my eyes a break by having Alexa read to me. She’s not bad. And if the technology forecasters are correct, in a year or two, systems like her will be fully capable of human-like speech.
As for writers, if cars can drive themselves, why can’t a book write itself? If you find yourself scoffing at the idea, consider that one of the first AI systems to generate random prose was developed in 1983. Then, take a look at the paragraph below, part of two pages recently written by a machine given only the topic, “Dogs and Cats”.
“When introducing a dog to a cat, pay attention to the body language of both animals. A good indication that your cat is unhappy is when her ears are stuck back or her tail swings back and forth. Although dogs have lived successfully with cats in the past, it is important to remember that dogs and cats are individuals and each introduction is different.”
Sure, it’s not destined to be a best-seller, and yet, going from “Tattered birds reap the yellow roof” (random prose, right?) to that paragraph in a little over 30 years, could stories with suspense, twists, and conflict be more than another 30 years away?
If you’ve read this far, thanks for your interest! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to my story before I’m replaced by a machine.
A: I’m a psychologist turned author, although perhaps not the kind of psychologist you’re thinking. I’ve worked almost exclusively in a subfield of psychology known as human factors, which addresses, among other issues, questions of how to use technology to improve human learning and memory. To me, this is one of the most exciting areas of research for the future, as we look for that “sweet spot” between man and machine.
I might still be working in the field except for two things. One, I always wanted to be an author; and two, after a while, my company transitions researchers to new business development … with all the travel that entails. Don’t get me wrong; I like to travel. But we had a joke about business travel for the company: “You won’t see a lot of the world, but what you see, you’ll see a lot.” Over the last ten years or so of my first career, I spent the equivalent of several months each in the United Kingdom, Italy, and Singapore. Those are great places to visit, except when all you see, day after day, is the inside of some business’s conference room.
So, when the opportunity to write came along—and to achieve a more balanced travel portfolio—I jumped at the chance. Six books later, I’m still loving it.
Q: How long have you been publishing fiction?
A: During the Manhattan Project, scientists weren’t certain that the atomic bomb wouldn’t cause a chain reaction that would destroy the earth. Author Pearl S. Buck in a 1959 article put it this way:
"If, after calculation, [Compton] said, it was proved that the chances were more than approximately three in one million that the earth would be vaporized by the atomic explosion, he would not proceed with the project. Calculation proved the figures slightly less -- and the project continued."
The research I’ve done, and most psychological research, uses five chances in one hundred (rather than three in one million) as acceptable odds for scientific “proof”. So, of my 40 or so published papers, one might estimate that two are wrong, which means I started publishing fiction in the 1980s or 90s.
Or, if you prefer a less tongue-in-cheek answer, my first fiction novel was published in 2015.
Q: Why did you choose to write in your particular genre?
A: I’ve always been fascinated by the intersection of human psychology and technology, both now and in the future, as my comments about my background probably made clear. And since most technologies will have beneficial uses as well as potentially evil misuses, all it takes is an unbalanced mind to change the course of history. That theme, which is common in most of my books, puts them in the techno-thriller genre.
And while I don’t write it, I enjoy historical fiction. The reason is because many of the writers in this genre are masters at blurring the line between accepted history and pure fiction. I find this tension between fact and fiction engrossing and so, I try to do the same with the technologies in my books. That focus places many of my books in the hard science fiction genre, where I avoid “Voila Science” and fantasy in favor of what’s likely in the near term. My near-future mystery, Killer in the Retroscape, for example, includes a couple of chapters about a pandemic. It, however, was written in 2018, well before COVID. I’ll let you judge how well I blurred the line between fact and fiction in that story.
Then, sometimes, such as my novel, From the Mind of a Witch, the psychology of the principles takes center stage, nudging the book toward the psychological thriller genre. And sometimes the evil is dark enough to make the horror genre applicable. Both of these genres, however, are generally secondary in my writing.
Q: What made you decide to become an indie author, and what do you like best about being indie?
A: The distinction between indie (independent or self-published) and traditionally published tends to be important to authors, but I’ve often wondered—does it mean anything to readers?
Initially, I suspect that traditionally published implied higher quality writing, on average. After all, it involves multiple gates—an agent who’s willing to pitch the book to a publisher and a publisher who’s willing to take a chance to print it. But one only needs to consider the history of Chicken Soup for the Soul, which became a best-seller, and then a series, and now a multi-armed franchise to question that conclusion. It was rejected 144 times by publishers. Obviously, it’s not a foolproof system.
On the other hand, in its 2019 review of Kindle sales, Amazon indicated that more than 1,000 indie authors hit six-figure sales. So, equally obvious, there are some popular (and most likely good) indie authors. Of course, most indies don’t make six figures a year, me included, but being indie doesn’t automatically mean lower quality.
So, to me, the question becomes, do I spend time chasing an agent, who in turn, spends more time chasing a publisher when in the end, I do most of the marketing anyway while being paid less and forcing my plots into a publisher’s formula. I think not … unless they have a powerhouse marketing department.
Q: What’s the easiest part of writing for you? What’s the hardest part?
A: The fact that I’d consider a publisher with “… a powerhouse marketing department” probably tells you what I find least interesting in the writing process—marketing. And I’ll have to admit, I started writing without realizing how competitive the field was. In 2018, there were nearly 1.7 million books self-published in the United States. So, the chance that I could have put Killer in the Retroscape on Amazon that year and sold more than a few copies to family and friends without marketing is virtually zero. If marketing isn’t the proverbial “necessary evil” of writing, it’s at least the least engaging but vital activity to me.
The most interesting? First drafts. If you’ve ever seen the comedy movie, True Memoirs of an International Assassin with Kevin James, you may understand why. James is an author and at the start of the movie, he’s struggling with writer’s block. And while he’s searching for the right words or the perfect twist, his characters are sitting around bored, waiting for his creative juices to flow again. It feels something like that when I work on a first draft, except my characters take a lot more active role. As I write their dialog, they may say “I don’t talk that way.” Or as I move them through the plot, they may remind me, “Remember what happened in the last book? I wouldn’t do that.” OK, maybe they don’t actually talk to me, but I’ve had sections bother me for weeks (as if my characters are whispering in my ear) until I find the storyline that works for all of us. And when that happens, it’s worth all the back-and-forth that got us there.
Q: Are you a plotter or a pantser?
A: I’d say, a little of each. I’ve never started a book without an outline. Admittedly, it’s a lot more detailed in the opening and the final scenes, two sections that I’ve generally written in my head dozens of times before pen ever touches paper (or keypresses rearrange pixels on the screen if you want today’s version of that idea). In fact, not only have I mentally written the final scene of my current work-in-progress that’s about half done but the finale of the next book in the series as well.
What happens between my well-defined opening and closing, however, is much more like the writing style of a pantser—the outline provides a general direction, but the actual path is defined by the characters. My villains always show me an eviler side than I’d imagined possible. My protagonists show resilience I didn’t know they had. But my collaboration with them, nonetheless, has always led back to the ending I’d envisioned.
Q: Do you have a set writing schedule or a goal of a certain number of words within a certain time period?
A: My schedules don’t involve writing. They involve everything else, everything that keeps me from the story—paying bills, marketing my books, maintaining my home. I also schedule my hobbies, mostly hiking, because even living in Colorado, it still takes some planning to spend the day in the mountains. So, why schedule these and not writing? Because the point of scheduling is to get things done as quickly and as efficiently as possible. So, while I enjoy tweaking plot with a cup of coffee at my computer and like mentally rehearsing dialog as I nod off to sleep, who wants to spend even a second more than absolutely necessary paying their bills?
Q: How do you typically get your ideas for a book?
A: Perhaps an example, adapted from my answer to a similar question on Goodreads, will provide some insight. Shortly after publishing my first book, a friend emailed me, asking, “Of Half a Mind. Is that autobiographical? :-)”
That’s not a bad guess, but it’s wrong. The inspiration actually came from a recommendation I received for another book. I was told I’d like it because it’s about “brain plasticity gone wrong”. And since plasticity is the brain’s natural curative response to injury—it’s the brain rewiring itself to avoid damaged neural pathways—I was hooked. How could healing go wrong?
So, I got a copy of the book and read it, only to find that it really wasn’t about plasticity.
But that made little difference because I was still hooked. I began thinking about the technology necessary to coerce the brain into reorganizing itself in the absence of injury. Some of that technology I knew from my first career, but it was still eerie how close we had already come to creating the fictional device I dreamt up for the book. In my opinion, I’d effectively blurred the line between technological fact and the novel’s fiction.
Then, the question became, what would someone who used this capability look like? From that question came the fictional character, The Experimenter, an individual who had succumbed to the warped sense of morals the device produced. And if you’re wondering, yes, horror is one of the subgenres for this book.
Q: Are you working on something right now?
A: My current work-in-progress is the fifth book in the Mind Sleuth Series, tentatively titled, A Winkle in the Mind. Two of my main characters, Sam “Doc” Price and PI Rebecca Marte are reunited to investigate a woman’s bizarre political conspiracy theory that leads to an attack on a U.S. Representative and her suicide. With all the usual causes of homicidal delusions eliminated—reality-altering drugs, brainwashing from abuse and deprivation, brain injury, etc.—they’re forced to adopt a hypothesis so chilling that they can only hope it’s wrong.
Q: What do you think is the future of book publishing?
A: There are dozens of surveys of authors and publishers that seem to say mostly the same things about the future of publishing. eBooks and audiobooks will continue to be growth markets, while print books seem to be holding their own. The last result has always surprised me, as I lost interest long ago in having dozens of print books filling every available nook and cranny of my home. And frankly, I wonder if it will still be true in another five to ten years. We’ll see.
But beyond these near-term trends, I’d expect audiobook narrators to be displayed first and then, authors themselves. Today’s work on auto-narration of audiobooks is being enabled by the same artificial intelligence technology that taught Siri and Alexa to speak. And even today, I sometimes give my eyes a break by having Alexa read to me. She’s not bad. And if the technology forecasters are correct, in a year or two, systems like her will be fully capable of human-like speech.
As for writers, if cars can drive themselves, why can’t a book write itself? If you find yourself scoffing at the idea, consider that one of the first AI systems to generate random prose was developed in 1983. Then, take a look at the paragraph below, part of two pages recently written by a machine given only the topic, “Dogs and Cats”.
“When introducing a dog to a cat, pay attention to the body language of both animals. A good indication that your cat is unhappy is when her ears are stuck back or her tail swings back and forth. Although dogs have lived successfully with cats in the past, it is important to remember that dogs and cats are individuals and each introduction is different.”
Sure, it’s not destined to be a best-seller, and yet, going from “Tattered birds reap the yellow roof” (random prose, right?) to that paragraph in a little over 30 years, could stories with suspense, twists, and conflict be more than another 30 years away?
If you’ve read this far, thanks for your interest! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to my story before I’m replaced by a machine.
Blog: http://brucemperrin.blogspot.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100010685952979
Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00J1KKTZ6
Goodreads Author Page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14422947.Bruce_M_Perrin
Bruce Perrin's Audiobook Storefront: https://shop.authors-direct.com/collections/bruce-m-perrin
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100010685952979
Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00J1KKTZ6
Goodreads Author Page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14422947.Bruce_M_Perrin
Bruce Perrin's Audiobook Storefront: https://shop.authors-direct.com/collections/bruce-m-perrin
